The Vizio D24f-F1 is a budget-priced 24-inch 1080p TV that might be a good fit for your kitchen or guest room.

Most new TVs, including budget models, are relatively large these days. We rarely receive any TVs in our test lab smaller than 40 inches, so the Vizio D24f-F1 is a bit of a surprise. This 1080p TV has a monitor-size 24-inch screen, with Vizio's SmartCast for media streaming and a very attractive $149.99 price tag. Picture quality isn't particularly impressive and we can't recommend it as a computer monitor given its limited PC-friendly ports and relatively high input lag, but it could make a nice addition to a kitchen or guest room.

Design

The D24f-F1 looks predictably unassuming and slightly chunky. The flat, glossy black plastic bezel is 0.6 inches wide on the top, 0.7 inches wide on the sides, and 0.8 inches wide on the bottom. It thickens out to an appreciable 2.4-inch depth on the bottom edge, which rests on two V-shaped black plastic legs. The only distinguishing feature on the TV is a silver Vizio logo on the lower right corner of the bezel.

All of the connections are back-facing, which would be inconvenient on a larger screen but isn't particularly annoying on a 24-inch, 7.4-pound TV you can easily pick up. The lack of any side-facing ports can be troublesome if you want to mount the D24f-F1 on a wall, though. Two HDMI ports face outward near the lower right corner of the back of the TV, along with a USB port, an Ethernet port, an antenna/cable connector, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and 3.5mm ports for combined component/composite video input. Power and input buttons, along with a volume rocker, sit near the right edge of the back of the TV.

The remote is a flat, button-laden rectangular wand measuring 6.7 by 1.8 inches (HW). It features a large, square-shaped navigation pad near the top, with dedicated service buttons for Crackle, Hulu, iHeartRadio, Netflix, Vudu, and Xumo above it. Volume and channel rockers sit below the navigation pad, with a number pad below them. While most of the buttons on the remote feel very similar, the navigation pad and volume rocker are easy to find under the thumb.

SmartCast

The D24f-F1 uses Vizio's SmartCast platform for connected features. It's a fairly simple, accessible interface that offers a small handful of streaming apps like Amazon Prime Video, Crackle, Hulu, and Netflix. It's a pretty paltry, inconsistent selection on its own when compared with Roku and Amazon Fire TV, but that's where the Cast part of SmartCast fits in.

The platform supports Google Cast, letting the TV function as if a Google Chromecast is connected to it. This makes hundreds more apps and services available, all controlled through your smartphone or tablet. A mobile device or computer is required if you want to stream content this way, which means the remote control won't offer much help.

After a basic dark room calibration to adjust brightness and contrast levels, the D24f-F1 showed a peak brightness of 176.06cd/m2 and a black level of 0.16cd/m2 for a mediocre-to-poor contrast ratio of 1,100:1. This can be explained by the TV's use of edge lighting for such a small screen; the larger 2018 Vizio D-series TVs use LED backlighting, so we cannot assume that those models show similar contrast to this version.

For comparison, the 55-inch Element Roku TV shows a peak brightness of 201.77cd/m2 and a black level of 0.06cd/m2 for triple the contrast ratio, and the excellent TCL 55P607, our Editors' Choice, has a 507.85cd/m2 peak brightness and 0.02cd/m2 black level for an excellent 25,393:1 contrast ratio.

The below chart shows Rec.709 broadcast standard color levels as boxes and measured color levels as dots. Out of the box, using the Normal color temperature preset, the D24f-F1 has fairly accurate colors, despite slightly undersaturated reds. Since the TV lacks a wide color gamut, it can't exceed Rec.709 levels for comparison with the wider Rec.2020 color space, as we do with 4K HDR TVs when possible.

With its limitations in mind, the D24f-F1'S picture looks perfectly fine. Blues and greens in the BBC's Planet Earth II look natural and balanced, even if they aren't more vivid than broadcast standards. Fine textures like sloth fur and tree bark appear clearly in 1080p, and while shadow details can look a bit washed out, the details are still visible.

The TV's poor contrast is apparent in The Great Gatsby. The film's typically vibrant, high-contrast scenes look a bit pale with the high black level and relatively low peak brightness, making the party scenes a bit flat. Skin tones look natural and balanced in most lighting, though a few shots make characters look slightly more pale than they should be.

Input Lag and Power Consumption

Of particular interest to gamers, input lag is the amount of time between a TV receiving a signal and its screen updating. In Calibrated mode, the D24f-F1 shows an input lag of 26.7ms. The TV's Game mode trims that down to a still rather high 24.6ms. We like to see TVs with input lag under 20ms to consider them very responsive. You can find some of the fastest TVs we've tested in our list of the best TVs for gaming.

Under normal viewing conditions, the D24f-F1 consumes 21 watts in Calibrated mode. For a screen this size, using this little energy, dimming the picture using a more energy-efficient mode seems unnecessary.

Conclusions

Despite poor contrast, colors are fairly accurate out of the box and the Vizio D24f-F1 offers plenty of streaming features thanks to the SmartCast platform, all for just $150. If you're looking for a small TV for the garage, basement, or study, this is an attractive option.

Despite its small size, its limited PC connectivity (no DVI, DisplayPort, or VGA) and mediocre response rate means we can't recommend it as a desktop monitor; our guide to the best monitors can help you find a better choice in the price range. If you have more space to fill and more money to spend, budget 4K TVs like the Element Roku TV and TCL S-series are both very compelling options. Of course, at that point you're talking about spending twice as much on a TV that's twice as big.

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About the Author

Will Greenwald has been covering consumer technology for a decade, and has served on the editorial staffs of CNET.com, Sound & Vision, and Maximum PC. His work and analysis has been seen in GamePro, Tested.com, Geek.com, and several other publications. He currently covers consumer electronics in the PC Labs as the in-house home entertainment expert... See Full Bio

Vizio D24f-F1

Vizio D24f-F1

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